Cotswold chic

Not new, but Barnsley House in the Costwolds (famous for it's essentially English gardens created by Rosemary Verey in the 1950s) is inspiring for its simple yet chic and comfortable interiors.

I really love the way they hang their art on ribbons vertically hung from picture rails, and the twig 'edging' in the bar is genius!


Love the way these pictures are hung - arty without being stuffy or formal. You could use different colours and widths of ribbon for different rooms.


I am really craving a wingback chair....


Possibly the coolest cocktail table ever?

Violet Rain

One of the dreams I have on my "what-would-I-do-if-I-won-the-lottery" days is to open my own art gallery supporting emerging artists. Until my numbers come up, there is Etsy. And actually, I think even if you had all the moeny in the world, it's more fun to collect REAL art from talented young artists who aren't well known than walk into an art gallery and have someone tell you why you should buy something that's already acknowledged as a masterpiece.

My latest discovery is Natasha Newton. She's hardly undiscovered talent (with several solo exhibitions under her belt she's got a show coming up in Dartmouth), but her work is unique and affordable. You can't have the 'Violet Rain' above though, 'cos I've already bought it :)

Large patterned cloud.
Flying Bird 2.

Original 'House in the clouds' painting on wood block.

Beautiful biccies

Our lovely friend Viv bought us these incredible biscuits to celebrate us getting engaged in Paris. I've never seen such amazing biccies, the tin is fantastic, and will sit proudly in my kitchen for many years as a reminder of a wonderful weekend - and a wonderful friend!


The biscuits themselves are just amazing - tiny little works of art, depicting Paris landmarks!



My uber fave is the pink permed poodle - what else? think I'll have to eat him last...

The kitchen is finished! (honest...)

The final result! The wooden bannisters and old window frame look so much better painted white!

Thanks Mum and Dad!!

Check out the funky under cabinet lighting and splashback. And the paint spatters on my sweatshirt...

Lovely new window (finally stripped of the plastic covering)! The units look all shiny without their plastic wrap, and the boiler is finally boxed in - woo hoo!
All guests welcome for dinner any time, starting now.

Patrick Jouin at the Pompidou

In Paris we were lucky enough to see a really interesting exhibit at the Centre Pompidou about Patrick Jouin 'The Substance of Design', showcasing 20 years of his design team's work. I particularly loved the designs made using 3D rapid prototyping, like chairs and table above and the expandable stools below - and the cool 3D video they showed with Patrick and his team explaining their work virtually, in the exhibition!

This lamp is awesome, it opens out like an umbrella!


A funky stool, all made out of a single piece of plastic, which can be collapsed to save space.

and the happy couple!

Paris chic

We went to Paris last weekend and had a fabulous time (obviously!) and stayed at a very cool hotel near Saint Sulpice called Hotel Recamier. All the rooms were very stylish, made me want to move to Paris and live a charmingly chic life of striped breton shirts and baguettes. Tres chic!

I want a wing chair! Especialy in a cool fabric like this.

The bathroom mirror was hung on the wall with a leather strap, and looked antique - will have to scour London antiques markets for one similar.

The wall lights in the bar were amazing - resin antlers! Love them.

How cool is this leopard print carpet? Looks like a set from Domino magazine!

Ikea Kitchen Squad

Too-wit too-woo!

I first spotted this funny yet cooler-than-cool umbrella stand on the lovely decor8 blog. Then I spotted it on Design Milk... but I still can't find it to buy in the UK. Have scoured eBay and I'll keep looking!

Deal of the year

I have long lusted after these beautiful lamps in this cool Scandinavian-looking kitchen, so I was thrilled to bits to find a genuine Norm 69 lamp shade in my local charity shop last weekend! The one I snapped up is the 'X Large' size (60cm diameter) so a bit too large to hang in the kitchen above a dining table I think, but it should look great hanging over our stairs in the hallway.

Maybe the previous owner got bored of the 'do-it'yourself' construction of the 79 leaves...but they kindly had finished putting it together, so all I need to do is find a way to attach it to the ceiling!

My lovely Norm 69 light ready to be hung, after a good clean. Hooray! As I always say, one person's trash is another's treasure and all that...

Danish delights

You know how exciting it is when you find a shop, magazine or website that stocks stuff that is just SO YOU you feel like the owners must have personally selected every piece with your home in mind? And you want to buy EVERTHING immediately? Because it's all just exactly what you've been looking for! It is such an exciting feeling I sometimes almost feel a bit sick. Good thing it doesn't happen too often, then. But a VERY bad thing when it happens and none of the items are available to purchase in your country!

Such is the case with the fabulous housedoctor.dk. I adore everything in their beautiful catalogues - from the cute kitchen accessories to the gorgeous rugs, furniture and even ribbon and wrapping paper. I want it all - but I can't find any UK retailers who sell it!



If you know anyone who stocks these wonderful things in the UK (or even ships to the UK), please let me know! For now I will just content myself with salivating over the catalogue.

Last minute crafty decorations

If you're snowed in and haven't been quite as organised as you'd planned, it isn't too late to decorate your tree/house/table beautifully for the big day. Our tree's stylish silver and white decor scheme has been immeasurably improved by a few multi-coloured, splodgy and very glittery decorations handmade by my 17 month old niece. Here are some of my favourite decoration ideas, found on Etsy. The best bit is, they give you a good reason to sit inside and not venture out into the sleet.

Decorations made from old comic book pages (above).

Bird garland made from newspaper stuck onto cardboard, strung onto kitchen string or ribbon.

If all else fails, write on some citrus fruit with a felt pen and stick them in a big bowl.

Or decorate some eggs - who said this was only for Easter?

Happy Christmas.

Kitchen is finished!

Well, almost... finally we've got all our appliances installed and working, and we're using our lovely new kitchen. We definitely learned a lot along the way, but I am very happy with it overall. My only regret (maybe) is not going for a standalone fridge freezer... but then, those aren't very big and we do have a monster amount of space for chilling things now, which is fantastic.

Alternative Xmas tree

This is a cool alternative Christmas tree I found over on Houzz. Perfect for those who don't have space for a real tree, can't afford decorations or are simply not feeling too Christmassy...

Wonderful wreaths

For our Christmas party we had the lovely Annabel who has her own bespoke floristry business, teach us how to make lovely Christmas wreaths. And it was surprisingly easy! Having made a 'real' wreath I'm totally over making a bauble wreath... but I will be posting a step-by-step guide to making your own wreath tomorrow so stay tuned.

Jenna and Danielle get stuck into foliage and decorations.

Finance manager Steve is pretty proud of his creative efforts.

Our efforts turned out surprisingly well for first timers I think you'll agree.

Ho ho ho

I finally decorated the tree. Having sat naked in the corner of the living room for almost a week, it's now happily baubled-up and shedding needles all over the floor. Needs more baubles perhaps??

How to start an art collection

Buying art is a passion of mine, but I don't know much about it - or what to collect, other than what I fall in love with. I've never tried to collect with a view to 'investing', but a couple of the pieces I own have turned out to be good investments. I bought a small painting at the Affordable Art Fair a few years back, by a latin American artist who had had some good solo exhibitions as well as group shows in Argentina. A few years later, the same artist's work seems to be selling for at least four times what I paid for my painting. Not that I'd ever sell it...

One of my other favourite painters, Jimmie James is holding a sale of his works which means you can pick up an original for the bargain price of $100. Check out his list of paintings for sale here. You can't have these two though, 'cos they're mine!



Here's a good video on how to start an art collection:

Say it with personalized stationery

It seems to be a peculiarly American thing to stamp your initials all over your tote bag/pillow cases/boxer shorts - which is a little too much for me - but I really do love the idea of personalized stationery. At Christmas it's especially lovely to make your card stand out from all the others which plop onto the doormat (if anyone is sending real paper cards anymore, that is).

So today I've been looking at personalized stationery. My favourite is Fabulous Stationery, whose cards are exactly what they claim to be. Last year I ordered some of their holiday cards and they were great quality, and not too expensive. They have tons of graphic, slightly retro designs which definitely get the festive season off to a stylish start. (See above and below).

Those personalized family cards with photos of smiling/gurning babies don't always do it for me so if you prefer to play it safer, you can't go wrong with a beautifully stylized portrait of your family like these by Etsy-er Saratams.


Another favourite is Moo cards. You can either print from your own images, or choose from their range of designers; currently featuring very cool illustrators like Rachel Cave


and Jo Askey. I've ordered customised post cards from Moo this year as our holiday cards - great for the environment too, as they use 60% less waste to create then normal cards, and NO envelopes!

If even that is a bit too saccharine for you, how about some classic initials? Fancy but not too blue-blood, these cards by Etsy-er DingbatPress would work at Christmas or any time of the year. After all, even in the age of email we all love getting a card through the post, right?